Our faith states dogmatically that God created the heavens and the earth - thus our discussions do not revolve about this point, unless we are atheists. The Christian faith insists that we do not take God’s name in vain, and in my book, appropriating an inadequately formulated theory and then changing Christian doctrine to accommodate such a theory by saying that is how God did it, is using His name for a vain enterprise.
As I have said, evolution is the current paradigm in biology - it should remain there for the time being. If and when a revolution occurs in biology, and this is shown to provide relevant scientific insights, I am confident that it will add to our faith and understanding of the creation. However it is obvious that evolutionary biology has been used for other purposes, be they theistic or atheistic. We should treat this matter with great caution and skepticism - there is an abundant amount of material that shows science is in harmony with the Christian faith. Why not settle with this? Why is BioLogos (and other liberal Christians) making such a song-and-dance about evolutionary biology? It does not make sense to me.
I’ve always preferred this defintion: “any change in a population’s gene pool - including changes in either ratios of existing genes or in the activation or deactivation of genes…”
As you can see, with a definition like this, life forms are in a constant state of evolution.
Science does not accept personal preferences - ND is based on variation and natural selection, and this is driven by random mutations. Comments that seek to redefine evolutionary biology to suit preferences by theists and atheists are treated as oddities and not scientific statements.
Goodness me! Are you unaware of decades of discussion that have shown laws of science are founded/grounded in the Christian understanding of God as the Law-giver, or the arguments related to the constants of science, just to mention some of the truckloads of material?
Here is a condensed version of some of the material I’ve put into this thread. It’s not a truckload yet, but it’s getting there.
There is a natural break between Genesis 2:4 and Genesis 2:5. In Genesis 2:5 and throughout the story of Eden, we translate Eritz as land, and we thereby resolve the apparent contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Eden is a land, Eden is not the world. Eden is local, not global. This resolves the following apparent contradictions:
Genesis 2 has creation in a different order from that in Genesis 1. Genesis 1 has plants, then fish (and dinosaurs and birds) created before mammals, and then last, man. Genesis 2 has Adam created first, then trees and last, animals. If Genesis 1 is the story of the creation of the earth and life on earth, but Genesis 2 is the story special creation in a garden, then there is no contradiction. God created the earth and people, and then later God created Eden’s garden and Adam.
Local Eden answers the question of where Cain’s wife came from. She came from outside the Garden.
Local Eden answers the question of who Cain was building his city for. He was building it for some of the people who lived outside of the garden.
Local Eden answers the question of how the genealogies can indicate Adam lived 6 to 10 thousand years ago, but people have been around for 100,000 years.
Local Eden answers the Problem Of Pain and eliminates the need for the false doctrine of Original Sin. I have written about this in other places on the Forum. In a nutshell:
Only God is perfect.
We are not God.
Therefore we are not perfect and will inevitably sin.
Adam was not perfect, because he was not God, but Adam was blameless because he did not know the difference between good and evil.
Adam chose to gain the knowledge of good and evil.
When Adam gained the knowledge of good and evil he became culpable for his actions and was no longer blameless.
All humans, given the choice would have made the same choice as Adam.
All humans, because we desire to know the difference between right and wrong and make our own decisions, we require something to make decisions about.
The evil in the world is composed of challenges to overcome or be overcome by, alternatives to choose from, and people who choose to do evil and these things are all necessary consequences of or prerequisites for moral freedom of choice.
God is not evil for creating people he knew would sin and a world with evil in it; because the evil in the world is made necessary by our own desire for the knowledge of good and evil.
I call that the doctrine of inevitable sin.
Local Eden makes a nice foreshadowing of a local flood. A local flood fits with the geological column and the distribution of fossils from complex to simple as we move downward through the column.
The fact that Eden and the Flood were local fits more correctly with the actual text of the bible.
That takes us to the question of how Genesis 1 fits with an old earth.
I make five assumptions (at least). The first is that if you go outside in a pouring rain at twilight, the sky won’t look much like a dome, until the rain stops, at which time it will appear that the sky has been partitioned by a firmament (try it for yourself, I’ll hold the umbrella). The second assumption is that the earth’s atmosphere was overcast until the Great Oxidation Event and therefore, to an observer on the earth, the sun, moon and stars would not be visible until such an event (this is why it took so long for Galileo to catch on in London, they had never seen the sun). Third is that the 7 “days” described in Genesis 1 are actually 7 separate visions, given by God, to some nameless prophet, each of which emphasized or showed a different part of the development of our planet, and that this prophet then passed this information down in the ancient Hebrew oral tradition until it was written down by Moses. Fourth is that the prophet viewed these visions from the surface of the earth. Fifth is that the prophet had imperfect understanding (like everyone else in the Bible outside the Trinity) of what he saw in these visions and God did not narrate or explain to this prophet what it actually was that the prophet was seeing. Thus we get:
Fourth Vision. 2.4 billion years ago - The Great Oxidation Event: the Earth’s atmosphere gets oxygen. The sun, moon and stars are clearly visible for the first time from the surface of the earth. “lights”
Fifth Vision. 670 million years ago - First animals. 490 million years ago, jawless fish, To 150 million years ago - First birds. “fish and birds”
Sixth Vision. 114 million years ago - First modern mammals. “animals”
Seventh Vision. 5 million years ago - Humans split off from other apes (gorillas and chimpanzees). “male and female he created them”
Since the earth is old, why would God not have used evolution to create mankind and the animals that we see today? It is not the case that God only makes miracles instantaneously.
Mark 8: 22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”
24 He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into[a] the village.”
John 9:4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
The same people who complain that evolution is too bloodthirsty to have come from God are the same people who know all of the words to “There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood”. Evolution is not contrary to the nature of God. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b25-LJjrGQA
I must confess that your twisting of my comment into “force BioLogos to accept a non-God-bsed evolution” is odd even by your strange standards. I am showing that only science that has undergone great scrutiny, and examination, and meets the standards of philosophy of science, is worthy of being considered in faith-science discussions. Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory does not meet such requirements - thus Christians should treat it with skepticism and caution, and should not question our faith as a result.
This is the very opposite of what you say is “non-God” - just where do you get such odd views George?
As it should be. If God were some mere causal component or mere intervening agent (much like Zeus or any other god that would exist within creation as one of its components) then this would not be God at all in the classic Christian sense. So it is good that you have been relieved of this false notion. Many other Christians need the same clarification. But now that you’re done knocking down the play-acting god that so many atheists love to talk about, it’s time to start considering the real and living God, Creator of the universe and all causal agents therein. That God will defy our imaginations, and much more yet our microscopes and measurements. Anything entirely caught by such things cannot be God.
This is an odd exchange - for the last time, Neo-Darwinism is an inadequate theory within the context of well developed and theoretically grounded scientific theories. Consequently, it is insufficient to warrant examination and reformulation of theological doctrine of the Christian faith.
We can leave it at this … if we want to have the wrong understanding of what BioLogos supports.
I don’t believe ANY evolutionary scientist would call God-Guided evolution any form or variety of Darwinian, Neo-Darwinian or Quasi-Darwinian evolution.
God-Guided LIFE is at the heart of the Bible… BioLogos and the Bible are an excellent fit.
Casper: First, Hi and welcome to the conversation! Second, I am more than happy to drop the word “random.” Frankly, I use the word only in the spirit of common vernacular. Personally, apart from what are clearly genetic "copying errors (call them what you will), I dont think there is anything at all that is random about the genome. I believe that it manifests clear purpose, and that this has been evident from the Sequence Hypothesis forward. Moreover, I believe that it manifests evidence for the necessity of a Creator. However, anyone who is willing to believe that life is wholly the result of the deterministic processes of nature cannot point to such evidence. Inanimate matter is mindless, completely constrained by the laws which govern it. Without a mind, there is no purpose.
It seems to me that most (or all) of the folks I am interacting with are either appealing to some sort of law of nature that as of now is completely undiscovered, or else they are claiming that God is, in fact, deliberately intervening in the natural process. If it is the former, that requires a completely different conversation, which I am happy to have. If the latter, that’s fine, but if we are going to make that claim, we must abandon our allegiance to Darwin and proudly proclaim intelligent design. Yet there is a problem: if we are going to insist that God is “hiding” in the details and cannot be detected, then our position is completely uncompelling; it is reduced to mere personal opinion.
I do not claim that the problem is universal; I merely claim that it is a problem and I want you to see it. Given that you have agreed with me that the TOE is unchanged whether we believe in God or not, you and I have a starting point at last.
I attended Christian schools all my life, including college, where, like you, I learned (and aced) my courses in evolution. You did not experience a crisis of faith (neither did my bride), but I and many others did (my brothers, many of my classmates, and many others whose testimonies are readily available) . The reason is that one of the essential truths about God is that He has Created all life, and in particular humankind. The TOE, having no need of God, galvanizes the unbeliever. Not all believers have the same type of minds. But there are many among us who reason thus, Christie:
God’s Word clearly says that He has Created all life.
The TOE says that purely natural processes have Created all life.
these are two opposite claims.
I can believe one, but it is difficult to see how I can believe both.
Like my buddy Christie, I see my professors as Christians who are experts in their field.
I choose to believe that the TOE which they are teaching me is true.
I therefore can no longer believe in God. They may choose to do so, but that is entirely their own personal choice. It does not change the TOE one bit.
Obviously, this was not your line of thinking. It is not everyone’s. But for many of us, it is. Thus, the TOE is a one way door. It can - and does - turn believers into atheists. It can never work the other way.
The Bible also says that God individually and uniquely creates each one of us. I happen to have a baby due in about a month . So here’s a pop quiz. Who or what created my unborn child?
God
My wife and I
Biological processes
You have five seconds to pick only one option. Go!
EDIT: I’m not doing this to be snarky. But it’s so very very important to understand that the dichotomy between God and natural processes (wherein something can be attributed to one but not both) is an atheistic/materialistic premise, not a Christian one. It just so happens that the overwhelming majority of Christians accept this atheistic premise when thinking about creation, without even realizing that they are doing so. And, for me, realizing this and rejecting the false dichotomy totally changed how I thought about evolution.
And also, welcome to the Forum and thanks for your great contributions.
Neither do the stories of many, many people who have written for BioLogos. Or, perhaps more accurately, the stories on our site show that evolution does not automatically degrade or destroy someone’s faith. In many cases, it’s quite the opposite.
Here’s a bunch of scriptures that are used to support a young earth view. Each one can be interpreted to not contradict an old earth view.
Acts 17:26-27
Hosea 6:7
Romans 5:12-14
1 Corinthians 15:21-22
1 Corinthians 15:45-48
1 Timothy 2:13
Genesis 3:20
Romans 8:20-22
Deuteronomy 32:8
1 Chronicles 1:1
Luke 3:38
Jude 1:14
Exodus 31:15-17
I picked these up through the course of this Genesis Academy course. Some are from Ken Ham’s book.
I’ll go through these later and show how they do not contradict old-earth. Right now, I’m just too tired. I was up til’ 3AM trying to dry out and clean up my basement which flooded. Local flood, but certainly felt global at the time.
. So here’s a pop quiz. Who or what created my unborn child?